News from Indiewire

The 24th annual Screen Actors Guild Award nominations are underway at West Hollywood’s Pacific Design Center. Presenters Olivia Munn and Niecy Nash are revealing which actors will be honored by their peers in the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-aftra) at next month’s ceremony, which for the first time will feature a host, Kristen Bell of “The Good Place.”

“Effective today, PBS has indefinitely suspended distribution of ‘Tavis Smiley,’ produced by Ts Media, an independent production company,” PBS said in a statement to Variety, which first broke the news. “PBS engaged an outside law firm to conduct an investigation immediately after learning of troubling allegations regarding Mr. Smiley. This investigation included interviews with witnesses as well as with Mr. Smiley. The inquiry uncovered multiple, credible allegations of conduct that is inconsistent with the values and standards of PBS, and the totality of this information led to today’s decision.”

One of the things that’s often deceptive about an intimate coming-of-age movie like “Lady Bird” – built on nuanced performances, careful framing, and a subtle bittersweet tone – is the sense that it is somehow less cinematic, or less carefully crafted, than a bigger film with thrilling action scenes and bold camerawork.

For the look of “Lady Bird,” writer-director Greta Gerwig started working a year ahead of time with cinematographer Sam Levy (with whom she’d previously collaborated on “Frances Ha” and “Maggie’s Plan”) to figure out how to turn her somewhat abstract visual concept into a reality. Levy turned to his colorist Alex Bickel (“Moonlight”) during pre-production to develop an unique technical process that could carry Gerwig’s vision through to the finish line.

Gerwig, Levy, and Bickel sat down with IndieWire to talk about about their collaboration on “Lady Bird” and were willing to share before and after
»

“Loving Vincent” has become the surprise animated indie hit of the season, reaching $20 million worldwide at the box office and grabbing a Golden Globe nomination. An Oscar nom could follow as a result of its innovative experiment in hand-animating 65,000 frames of oil paintings, mimicking Vincent van Gogh’s bold colors and expressive brush strokes.

Read More:‘Loving Vincent’: How an Unknown Distributor Beat Its Competitors to Find This Runaway Hit

But that’s only part of it. By framing it as a speculative murder mystery shot with live-action performances (headlined by Saoirse Ronan and Aidan Turner), directors Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman have created a uniquely immersive animated experience. Their team of 125 painters integrated the performances into the oil painting style of animation through a combination of computer compositing and rotoscoping, thereby achieving a remarkable seven-year, $5.5 million production. (And, yes, it qualifies for Oscar consideration under the rules of
»

It’s easy to understand why Michael Fassbender hasn’t been floated as a potential Best Actor nominee for his work in “Alien: Covenant.” For one thing, the Oscars seldom acknowledge the fact that great acting can sometimes be found in massive summer tentpoles, even ones that underwhelm at the box office. For another, it would prove difficult to honor Fassbender’s work without splitting the vote or committing some kind of category fraud, as the guy plays two different roles in the film, improbably delivering both of the most brilliant performances in any blockbuster since “The Dark Knight.”

Also, it’s worth remembering that — in the long and illustrious history of the Academy Awards — no one has ever won for playing two androids who make out with each other on a remote alien planet during the middle of a slow-motion genocide. You can google that to confirm.

Helloooo-oooo! Doug Jones pulled off an upset win last night, becoming Alabama’s first Democratic senator in more than 20 years in the process. “Twin Peaks” fans, well aware that the newest member of Congress (almost) shares a name with one of Kyle MacLachlan’s many incarnations on “The Return,” celebrated with an appropriate smattering of gifs, memes, and other jokes.

Growing up in the suburbs of Los Angeles provided fertile inspiration for Michelle Morgan, director of the recent iTunes New Filmmaker Spotlight “It Happened in L.A.” (Click here to watch the film)

“I’m born and raised in La, so it’s a world that I know pretty well,” she said. “I lived in the city when I was a child and then I spent most of my young-adult years in the suburbs, so the city was always this mythical thing to us in the suburbs.”

“It Happened in L.A.” follows thirtysomething Annette (Morgan), her boyfriend, Elliot (Jorma Taccone), and her Bff, Baker (Dree Hemingway), as they navigate the perils of the bleak dating scene in Los Angeles. Is there such a thing as a perfect couple, or is that an urban myth?

“It Happened in L.A.,” which was Morgan’s feature directorial debut, premiered at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival
»

Say this for 2018: It can’t be any worse than 2017, right? (Spoiler: It totally can.) At least Netflix’s first batch of offerings inspires cautious optimism in the new year, with everything from the entire “Godfather” trilogy, “Marie Antoinette,” five different “Batman” films and five different “Bring It On” movies (did you even know they’d made that many?), “Midnight in Paris,” the complete “Lethal Weapon” collection, “Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory,” and “The Truman Show” coming to the streaming service in January.

Read More:Netflix Reveals the Most Binge-Watched Shows of 2017: ‘American Vandal,’ ’13 Reasons Why,’ and More

As for Netflix Originals, there are several: “Before I Wake” and “Rotten” are both available to stream as of January 5, “Somebody Feed Phil” and “The Polka King” premiere a week later, “The Open House” arrives on the 19th, and “A Futile and Stupid Gesture” and “Dirty Money” both debut on the 26th.
»

“The things inside your head, they’re only as real as you want them to be. If you want, you can just decide they’re not real.” Early on in “The Strange Ones,” Nick (Alex Pettyfer) tells this to his younger travel buddy Sam (James Freedson-Jackson), before seemingly making a coffee mug disappear. On its surface, the film is about two brothers heading out on a camping trip, but it quickly becomes apparent that not everything is as it seems, from the pair’s names to their endgame (to the existence of their coffee mugs). The film’s co-directors, Christopher Radcliff and Lauren Wolkstein, may be relatively new to audiences (“The Strange Ones” is their feature-length debut; in fact, it’s an expansion upon their own 2011 short, based on real-life true-crime stories), but movie buffs will recognize flashes of their cinematic inspirations throughout. The film may be intentionally vague, but
»

In a heartbreaking new first-person account over at The New York Times, actress and producer Salma Hayek has opened up about her experiences with disgraced executive Harvey Weinstein, detailing multiple instances in which Hayek alleges that Weinstein attempted to sexually assault her. Hayek also sheds light on why she stayed silent for so long, including an honest assessment of why she worked with Weinstein — and, by her own admission, remained “cordial” with him — even after his attempts to violate her in a multitude of ways.

Hayek writes, “I had brainwashed myself into thinking that it was over and that I had survived; I hid from the responsibility to speak out with the excuse that enough people were already involved in shining a light on my monster…
»

On Monday night, “The Big Sick” team might have thought all those months of relentless awards campaigning were a waste. A Norman Lear-hosted post-screening party became an inadvertent wake for a disappointed Holly Hunter, Kumail Nanjiani, Emily B. Gordon, and filmmaker Michael Showalter after the morning’s total snub by the Golden Globes.

Little more than 24 hours later, they have real reason to celebrate. The Amazon/Lionsgate comedy landed Film Ensemble and Supporting Actress nods from the SAG nominating committee — and that’s way more significant and predictive of ultimate Oscar support.

Alex Garland has been one of the most reliable names in science-fiction cinema over the last decade, first as the screenwriter of titles such as “28 Days Later” and “Never Let Me Go” and later as the breakthrough director of “Ex Machina.” The latter was one of the big critical hits of 2015, winning an Oscar for VFX and recently being named one of the best sci-fi films of the century by IndieWire. All of this is to say expectations are sky high for Garland’s new sci-fi offering, the studio-funded “Annihilation.”

“Annihilation” is based on the novel of the same name by Jeff VanderMeer. Natalie Portman leads the cast as a biologist who must enter an ecological disaster zone in North America to try and figure out what is threatening her husband’s life. The supporting cast includes Gina Rodriguez,
»

Niecy Nash and Olivia Munn unveiled the 2018 SAG Awards nominations with casual bursts of joy and humor Wednesday morning, and the list of TV nominations seems to reflect their devil-may-care attitude. There were plenty of sweet surprises and thus plenty of stunning snubs.

From series that performed beyond expectations — like “Glow” and “Ozark” — to shows that somehow didn’t make the cut — like “The Deuce” and “Fargo” — the TV nods require a bit of breaking down to make sense of it all.

Below, we’ve compiled a list of shows and performers that had their expectations dashed, and others who got the one good surprise phone call so early in the morning. These are the snubs and surprises of 2018:

Portraying Tonya Harding required Margot Robbie to find empathy for a villianized woman, to balance comedy and pathos — and, to believably land a triple axel, the move that made Harding famous before she was infamous. However, Robbie was raised in Dalby, Australia, a coastal town where temperatures rarely go below freezing.

Now the Neon/30 West release is a specialty hit, and Robbie has become a Golden Globe and SAG Award nominee with a litany of gravity-defying onscreen spins. Credit for that transformation goes to choreographer and former Ice Capades skater Sarah Kawahara, who also served as onetime choreographer for Harding’s nemesis, Nancy Kerrigan.

Kawahara’s choreography subjects include Peggy Fleming, the 2002 Olympics opening ceremony, and Will Ferrell in “Blades of Glory.” She said the 1994 attack on Kerrigan had a huge impact on her career. “It changed the face of skating,” she told IndieWire in a recent phone interview. “All
»

As is annual tradition, Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden has announced this year’s 25 film set to join the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress. Selected for their “cultural, historic and/or aesthetic importance,” the films picked range from such beloved actioners as “Die Hard,” childhood classic “The Goonies,” the seminal “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner,” and the mind-bending “Memento,” with plenty of other genres and styles represented among the list.

The additions span 1905 to 2000, and includes Hollywood blockbusters, documentaries, silent movies, animation, shorts, independent, and even home movies. The 2017 selections bring the number of films in the registry to 725.

“The selection of a film to the National Film Registry recognizes its importance to American cinema and the nation’s cultural and historical heritage,” Hayden said in an official statement. “Our love affair with motion pictures is a testament to their enduring power to enlighten, inspire and
»

It appears Louis C.K. fans are not concerned enough with sexual assault to not see his movie, but they at least don’t feel the need to pay for it.

“I Love You Daddy,” C.K.’s black and white homage to Woody Allen about a young girl in a relationship with an aging film director, has been leaked online. An illegal download of the film appeared on torrent sites Monday, including Pirate Bay. As originally reported by TorrentFreak, piracy group Hive-CM8 claimed responsibility for the leak, citing uncertainty surrounding the film’s release. The same group was behind the 2015 leak of Quentin Tarantino’s “The Hateful Eight,” among others. It is believed the group received a copy of the film’s awards season screener.

If anyone knows how difficult actors can be, it’s Clint Eastwood. Maybe that’s why he chose to cast non-actors in his latest directorial effort, “The 15:17 to Paris,” which recently released a dramatic new trailer worthy of its clunky title. Returning to ground he found fertile in 2016’s “Sully,” Eastwood depicts the true story of passengers on a French train who overtook an armed terrorist in 2015, preventing a potential mass shooting. Eastwood cast many of the real passengers to play themselves in the movie, including three Americans: Anthony Sadler, Alek Skarlatos, and Spencer Stone.

In the trailer, the three off-duty soldier are joking around about European Coke cans when they suddenly hear shots fired. Filmed in dramatic slow motion, passengers run down the aisles as the butt of a rifle
»

Netflix binged on Screen Actors Guild Awards last year, winning four of the eight major TV awards — including both drama and comedy ensemble prizes (for “The Crown” and “Orange is the New Black”) — and it appears destined to repeat in 2018. The streaming service dominated the 24th Annual SAG Awards nominations roster on Wednesday morning, cleaning up with 19 nods overall — ahead of second-place HBO (12).

Prolific up until his the very end, David Bowie is a model to so many artists precisely because he never stopped evolving. “David Bowie: The Last Five Years,” a new documentary from HBO, will chronicle the musician’s final projects, battle with cancer, and creative process. In the newly released trailer, the film promises archival footage, interviews with close friends and collaborators, and nuggets of wisdom from the man himself.

Aspiring musicians will no doubt be moved by Bowie’s indefatigable creative spirit. In one interview, he lays out one of his artistic tenets: “Always go a little further into the water than you feel you’re capable of being in. And when you don’t feel that your feet are quite touching the bottom, you’re just about at the right place to do something exciting.”

IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.